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Biography & Autobiography. History. Medical. Nonfiction. HTML: "Enthralling. Harrowing. Heartbreaking. And utterly redemptive. Lindsey Fitzharris hit this one out of the park." â??Erik Larson, author of The Splendid and the Vile Lindsey Fitzharris, the award-winning author of The Butchering Art, presents the compelling, true story of a visionary surgeon who rebuilt the faces of the First World War's injured heroes, and in the process ushered in the modern era of plastic surgery. The audiobook is read by actor Daniel Gillies who is the great, great nephew of the pioneering surgeon, Harold Gillies. From the moment the first machine gun rang out over the Western Front, one thing was clear: mankind's military technology had wildly surpassed its medical capabilities. Bodies were battered, gouged, hacked, and gassed. The First World War claimed millions of lives and left millions more wounded and disfigured. In the midst of this brutality, however, there were also those who strove to alleviate suffering. The Facemaker tells the extraordinary story of such an individual: the pioneering plastic surgeon Harold Gillies, who dedicated himself to reconstructing the burned and broken faces of the injured soldiers under his care. Gillies, a Cambridge-educated New Zealander, became interested in the nascent field of plastic surgery after encountering the human wreckage on the front. Returning to Britain, he established one of the world's first hospitals dedicated entirely to facial reconstruction. There, Gillies assembled a unique group of practitioners whose task was to rebuild what had been torn apart, to re-create what had been destroyed. At a time when losing a limb made a soldier a hero, but losing a face made him a monster to a society largely intolerant of disfigurement, Gillies restored not just the faces of the wounded but also their spirits. The Facemaker places Gillies's ingenious surgical innovations alongside the dramatic stories of soldiers whose lives were wrecked and repaired. The result is a vivid account of how medicine can be an art, and of what courage and imagination can accomplish in the presence of relentless horror. A Macmillan Audio production from Farrar, Straus and Giroux.… (more)
User reviews
War wounds have changed little since the nineteenth century, but the medical/surgical treatment and reconstruction have changed
I requested and received an e-book copy without illustrations (darn!) from Farrar, Straus and Giroux via NetGalley. Thank you!
The Facemaker was Harold Gillies, a jovial, driven surgeon with a side line in amateur golf tournaments, who dedicated those years to caring for these men. In an age where "plastic surgery" wasn't even a widely-used phrase, he quickly understood just how complicated facial surgery was - delicate, highly vascular tissues in intricate layers of epithelium, dermis, and mucous membranes, with bony and cartilaginous structures underneath, that simply could not be stitched up like a lacerated leg. These men needed to be able to eat, to swallow, to breathe. There were few surgeons who even tried this type of work - several of them who did were dentists, who at least understood the architecture of the lower face. Gillies plunged in, experimenting, inventing, nursing along his patients, greeting new ones with a cheery: "Don't worry, sonny, you'll be all right and have as good as face as most of us before we're finished with you." He convinced military authorities to establish hospitals specifically for facial injuries, where patients could get the most rigorous specialized care - and where they were not outliers of deformity among less dramatically injured men. He hand-wrote labels to be sent to the front, instructing field staff to tag soldiers with facial injuries to be sent directly to him. He pioneered techniques of skin grafts, flaps and tubed pedicles that are standard procedures to this day. A fascinating aside is the work of a number of artists who worked alongside - notably, Henry Tonks, who created detailed drawings of these ravaged faces, to document their presentation, intermediate progress, and final results. There were women sculptors who created delicate masks of thin metal, replicating the men's original faces, to be worn over injuries that were impossible to repair - one of them was Kathleen Scott, widow of explorer Robert Falcon Scott.
Briskly written, impressively researched, Fitzharris's book also profiles a number of the patients themselves through their diaries, letters, memoirs, and family interviews. Their courage, tenacity and sometimes tragedy is deeply moving. Readers should note that the illustrations include a number of carefully chosen photographs of these men that are very difficult to look at, but in this context feel necessary to fully tell their stories.
Some years back, on a trip to London, I was able to visit the library of the Royal College of Surgeons. Serendipitously, they had a wondrous exhibit of Tonks's original drawings. This book is a terrific addition to the tragic and significant history of the Great War, its soldiers, its surgeons, and the history of medicine.
While the discussions on surgical techniques and medical advances are fascinating, the heart of the narrative is the human ones from both the medical teams to the patients themselves.
A wonderfully balanced, fascinating, and engaging read.
Dr Harold Gillies is the titular surgeon who is constantly creating new ways to help disfigured soldiers (warning! Link leads to extremely graphic photos that may be disturbing) live normal lives. It is noted that those who had lost limbs were celebrated as heroes fighting for their country, while those who sustained facial injuries were shunned and considered freaks. The reasoning behind this is: faces and their ability to create expressions are what makes us “human”, and any deviation of what is considered “normal” creates discomfort. A face without a nose, or with a shattered jaw is difficult to look at, and so those poor soldiers were hidden away from the general public. The wards where those men were kept contained no mirrors, lest they catch a glimpse of themselves and lose the will to live.
Gillies is not the only doctor mentioned in this book; many other courageous surgeons contributed to the effort to repair these poor soldiers. The book is interspersed with descriptions of action on the Western Front, excerpts from diary entries from the soldiers that were lucky enough to have their journals survive (even if they didn’t), and accounts of how collaboration among the doctors furthered their knowledge and experience.
What fascinated me the most was hearing about the soldier’s activity on the battlefield, how he came to be injured, then his ordeal with Dr Gillies, enduring multiple operations while new techniques were tried time and time again. The book does contain a lot of graphic detail, so if you are squeamish, be aware.
I learned about artwork bringing attention to the soldier’s plight – one of the more poignant ones is the painting by John Singer Sargent entitled Gassed. The human cost of war is depicted in this 21-foot-long epic work. Other paintings and drawings are noted throughout the book, explaining how these methods helped the physicians rebuild faces. Sculpture was also used; multiple casts were made as the recreation and correction of each visage progressed.
The epilogue of THE FACEMAKER notes how plastic surgery evolved from a necessity to a luxury; rhinoplasty, facelifts, and the like were performed by Gillies long after the war was over. He continued to help others feel better about themselves until he died in 1960. He was a true visionary whose work ethic and kindness made the world a better place for many, many others.